Qais Akbar Omar on what gives him nightmares

05 December 2012

Qais Akbar Omar was born in 1982. He is a gifted linguist who trained as a journalist and as a translator for the US military and the UN. A Fort of Nine Towers, which will be published by Picador in June 2013, was written in English and will be translated all over the world.

He's chosen some fantastic books as his favourites, but his answer to the question, 'What gives you nightmares?' casts everything else into the shadows.

Can you give one piece of advice to people wanting to become a writer?

Don't ask yourself hundreds of questions. Just write. Remember, the first draft is the hardest part. But just do it, even if you have to write one line a day.

Do you read on paper or ebook?

Paper.

One book you have read more than once?

Selections from Plato's republic. Persons in the Dialogue: Socrates, Glaucon, Adeimantus. Socrates is the narrator. The issue they are discussing is the nature and origin of justice.

Your worst ever job?

Working for United Nation Development Program (UNDP) in Kabul where nothing gets done.

What gives you nightmares?

Things that I have seen during the years of war in Afghanistan, all my 30 years. Many of the things I experienced during the years of civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, and during the subsequent Taliban era, they all haunted me in my dreams. A dear friend, Stephen Landrigan, who is also my co-author of Shakespeare in Kabul, came to Afghanistan in 2004, working for USAID, suggested that by writing them down I might be able to put those nightmares to rest.

I followed his advice, and it took me two months to write almost everything 500+-page manuscript in English, a language I had taught myself. The reason I wrote them in English, is because I don't have a lot of sentimental attachment to it as I do with my mother tongue, Dari and Pashto. It made is easier to write. Now it is turned into a book, A Fort of Nine Towers. He was right, I don't get haunted by those nightmares in my dreams. It helped, but they are still there.